File-drawer cabinets commonly have the top drawer modified to provide frontal access, so the office personnel will not have to use stools or step ladders. Working over the front of the drawer is difficult for the average person when more than four drawers of standard height are present in the cabinet. The usual modification of the top drawer is the elimination of the front panel of the drawer, and the addition of a retractable cover over the top drawer opening.
This feature produces design problems. The cabinet structure usually uses vertical members of angular cross section at the front corners, providing front flanges extending from a half to three-quarters of an inch inward from the plane of the side of the cabinet. For appearances, it is desirable to cover the slight opening between the flanges and the edges of the drawer, and the usual practice has been to provide front drawer panels that overlap the flanges when the drawers are closed. The retracting cover panel for the top drawer opening, however, has to move inside the flanges, and therefore the cover panels have not been capable of overlapping the front edge flanges of the cabinet. To do so would block the retraction. The result of this situation is that the covering position of the top closure panel presents an irregularity due to the vertical misalignment of the edges of the top panel with the edges of the lower drawers.
Accumulations of tolerance in manufacturing make it undesirable to align the edges of the fronts of the drawers with the outer extremities of the cabinet. To attempt this inevitably produces irregularities that are unsightly, and also could present possible clearance problems in the drawer movement with respect to adjacent objects. This invention provides a solution to these two problems without seriously weakening the cabinet.